It is arguable that one of the most serious obstacles to a proper appreciation of Barth's magnum opus is an inadequate grasp of the fact that the Church Dogmatics is a work of moral theology as well as of systematics. A failure to take this point seriously often lies behind critiques of Barth's theology generally, when he is accused of being abstracted from the world of human history and action. By reinterpreting Barth's work as an ethical dogmatics, Webster shows that such readings are all too often abortive from the beginning.